Digital Bodies offers news and analysis of cutting-edge developments in XR and AI (ChatGPT and related platforms) and how they will impact education, nonprofits, businesses, and government organizations. Augmented and virtual reality and artificial intelligence are converging technologies that will transform how we communicate, learn, work, and understand the world and ourselves.
We are at an inflection point where our digital tools and platforms are no longer passive extensions of ourselves but active partners in our lives. The possibilities are exciting; the ethical challenges are profound. Join us as we explore how the human becomes digital and the digital becomes human.
Who we are
Emory Craig
Emory Craig has years of experience as an innovator and leader in the creative industries and in higher education, where he has served as faculty in Media and Ethics, Director of eLearning, and Interim CIO. He has worked with educational institutions, libraries, and nonprofits to implement innovative learning environments and spark creative transformation. In 2017-2018, he co-authored the EDUCAUSE-ELI series: “VR and AR: Stepping into the New Frontier of Learning.” He has spoken at conferences around the world and worked with the US Agency for International Development, the United Nations, and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
As a futurist and writer, he is fascinated by the ways VR and AI will transform human experience and concerned by the potential ethical challenges. He focuses on the personal and organizational strategies we will need to learn and live in the future where experiences are available on-demand, and the boundary between the real and the virtual disappear. An active participant in the NYC startup community, his background spans business, higher education, and the art world.
Maya Georgieva
Maya Georgieva is a futurist storyteller and frontier technologies strategist working at the forefront of immersive realities, AI, and digital transformation. Maya‘s recent work centers on future forecasting, innovation, generative AI, and immersive storytelling. She is a leading voice in the intersection of emerging technologies and creativity, focusing on the future of learning, entertainment, work, and digital strategy.
As the Senior Director of the Innovation Center and XR, AI, and Quantum Labs at The New School, Maya spearheads initiatives in spatial computing, generative AI, quantum computing, and speculative design. She leads initiatives and a team focused on driving innovation in spatial computing, Generative AI, Quantum Computing, future interfaces, narratives, and speculative design. Maya teaches Immersive Storytelling at the Parsons School of Design. Maya works closely with the CIO, the Vice Provost for Curriculum and Learning, university academic groups, and faculty in the design, development, management, and evaluation of new digital learning initiatives across the five colleges Parsons School of Design, Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts, the College of Performing Arts, The New School for Social Research and the Schools of Public Engagement.
Maya has served as a judge and mentor at the MIT Reality and MIT AI for Film Making Hackathons. She was a press participant at SXSW and collaborated with Sony Visiting Scholar Keijiroh Nagano on an interactive installation for SIGGRAPH 2023, exploring Augmented Reality and Generative AI. Named one of the 30 Higher Education Influencers to follow in the USA in 2022, Maya curated the inaugural Quantum Art Exhibition, ‘Creative Expressions of the Infamously Counterintuitive,’ sponsored by IBM Quantum in 2023.
A sought-after speaker, Maya has presented on Immersive Realities, AI, and Quantum Art and Design at prestigious events including SXSW, UNESCO, and The Milken Institute Global Agenda. Her work has been featured in The Atlantic and The Economist. Notably, she launched “Speculative Cultures: A Virtual Reality Exhibition” at Parsons’ Sheila Johnson Design Center in 2019, one of the first gallery exhibitions to incorporate virtual reality headsets.
She is the co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer at Digital Bodies, a global consulting group focusing on the impact of immersive VR/AR/MR and wearable technologies on education and society. Her work focuses on digital learning, innovation in education, immersive learning, and storytelling. She a member of the Expert Panel for the New Media Consortium Horizon Report for Higher Education and serves on several educational and corporate learning boards. Maya has been instrumental in developing partnerships within and outside higher education with startups, corporate, and non-government organizations. In 2018 she spoke at the European Commission on Immersive Learning. Maya frequently speaks at national and international forums on innovation and the future of education and consults startups in this space.
Previously she led the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning at the Stern School of Business, New York University. Maya provided strategic leadership to advance academic initiatives that transformed the teaching-learning environment. She has spearheaded the implementation of instructional design and technology, learning space design, blended and online learning, digital storytelling, mobile and social platforms, and faculty development initiatives. Her work and projects focused on design thinking and the innovative use of immersive and mobile technology to foster higher levels of student engagement.
Maya is the recipient of the 2014 Campus Tech Education Futurist Award. In 2013, Maya’s Five Minutes of Fame talk on innovation in education was one of the most popular in the New Media Consortium series. In 2014, she delivered a second Five Minutes of Fame talk at NMC, focusing on the design of new learning experiences and the future of education. Her latest 2017 NMC talk is titled From Leonard to Google’s Tilt Brush in VR: The Birth of a New Medium. Her work has been featured at EDUCAUSE, Educause Learning Initiative, Fulbright, SXSW, MIT Media Lab, Salesforce, EU Commission, New Media Consortium (NMC), Online Learning Consortium (OLC), Campus Technology, EdMedia, GMAC, AACSB, Edutopia, Google, and Intel Engage Education. In 2010 – 2011, in partnership with XanEdu Publishing, Maya led the iPad pilot initiative at Stern. The project was recognized with the Campus Technology Innovator Award for designing a student-centered iPad App.
Digital Bodies on Social Media
Follow us for more AR, VR, and AI news and analysis. Digital Bodies is on Facebook and Twitter. You can also find Emory Craig or Maya Georgieva on Linkedin.
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